Garden

Someone has just cancelled their place on my Garden course at The Hearth on 2nd June. If you are interested find full details of the course HERE .

Just Let It Be

This old darned sack which I bought from Fabienne ( Dumasiennes you know who I mean) has been sitting in my studio for some time. I was going to add my own patching, darning and monogram but looking at my photos I realise my message is there - just let it BE....

Log Cabin

My mother's little cross stitch of a log cabin quilt incorporated into a collage on a real fragment of log cabin.

Staffordshire Ware

Here are some new appliqués I have been working on. They are based on my daughter's drawings of china figurines. I have loved doing these.

March Hare

Something with a hint of Spring on my desk this morning .

Colour

The snow has kept me in and forced me to work on a Power Point Presentation that I will present as a lecture at the Quilters Guild AGM in April. It is good to look back through photos to remind oneself of the journey you have travelled. This is a detail of the bottom of a quilt that is on a double page spread in my book .I love combining bits of different quilts and using colour. I just get bored when I try to use neutral palettes and red creeps frequently in to everything. Makes me want to go back to doing simple pieces which are all about colour and texture.

Mrs Bartlett

Using an appliqué quilt by Mrs Bartlett 1860 as inspiration for some appliqué designs of my own. Reconnecting with my surface pattern past.

Still cross stitching

Still exploring mixing up cross stitch in to my textile collages. Find the filling in parts ever so slightly boring!

Old and green

Pretty collage , all greens  and using some really fragile silk embroidered fragments, a little bit of tapestry, old quilt. I have echoed the fragile flowers by embroidering some of my own. All the usual favourite ingredients and in my 2018 resolution to let more go now available in my Etsy shop!

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/578152926/textile-collage-unframed?ref=pr_shop

Slippers

These are so much nicer for being old and worn.

its in the detail

so as requested by many of you close ups of the pieces featured in the last post. They are about 8 ins square.

18

On 15 December I posted some pictures of piles of fabric on my desk. I have sore fingers from stitching, stitching through January but have at last finished 18 square collages using all those bits. I am going to place a pano photo in this post so you might have to move it along to see all the pieces.

New/Old work

These collages have hung over my bed for the last ten years and I am finally letting them go as the room colour and styling is going to change.  I am selling these individually or as a pair through Etsy HERE.  I am afraid I can't post them abroad because of the jewellery elements.
I haven't worked in these nostalgic colours for many years but taking them out of the frames and remounting them has made me think I might return to this style for a bit, particularly in including found elements.

More cross stitch

Am I crazy?

I am about to cut up this Victorian crazy quilt piece. I have kept it for a long time but have decided it is just too ugly in its'present state. Look at the back though , this is what inspires me and will set me off on a new piece to hang in my studio.

A new wallet book for 2018

Doing my favourite thing just bringing little bits and pieces together. Making these little books a wee bit harder as you have to think of how the pages respond to each other.

In this particular book I have tried to use pieces old Ondian embroidery on to each page , often the reverse side. Ondian textiles not in fashion at the moment in textile art worlds but hope this encourages a revival!

Red square

Some new textile collages with a red  square at the centre. These bring together some of my most precious scraps.

New Year, New Direction

Recently my frail mother has moved permanently in to a care home. All of her life she has sewn  but has had to give it up recently which has distressed her. She has always done cross stitch kits and I know that I will  never never have the patience to follow someone else's design and count stitches but as a sort of homage to her sewing past I have decided that 2018 will be the year that I start mixing some cross stitch pattern making in to my own textile collage style. Here is the start of that process. It's taking me a long time to do the stitching so more to come!